"now that I have some time to think…"

Surviving Trump

You should not be surprised that after your recent meetings with North Korea, your demands were characterized as having a “gangster” quality to them. Clearly, the North Koreans were nice to you while you were there, made vague promises to try to fulfill the U.S. demands, and then blasted you once they stopped laughing among themselves.

It’s hard to know which label to put on the most recent U.S. government interactions because we lurch from claiming to be victims of other greedy countries to making demands of sovereign nations that they have no incentive to agree to in an attempt to look strong. We have pulled out of the Paris climate accords and reneged on the nuclear deal with Iran, one in which Iran is doing everything it said it would do–it’s just doing things that Mr. Donald (gansta-in-chief) doesn’t like but that were never part of the agreement.

Our trade policies are incomprehensible as we veer in and out of the imposition of tariffs that all seem to be hurting American businesses more than helping them. When Harley- Davidson motorcycles (can a company be any more MAGA than H-D?) shrugs their shoulders and claims that they will need to move their operations overseas to avoid the tariffs, the gangsta-in-chief claims that they are weak and are declaring surrender. Rather than punish our rivals and hostile countries, we have alienated our closest allies and we are becoming increasingly isolated in the world. The “America First” attitude is turning us into “Gangsta-Nation” because we have no respect for the treaties we have signed and no respect for the norms of diplomacy. Our word means nothing to the nations of the world.

Just within the past few days this “bully-first” attitude came to light at the United Nations as reports began to surface that the U.S. had tried to undermine a resolution promoting, of all things, breast-feeding that was being introduced by the country of Ecuador. Despite all of the scientific evidence that breastfeeding is beneficial for infants in both developed and developing countries, we tried to sabotage the resolution to “protect the infant-formula industry.” Our team went so far as to threaten Ecuador with trade sanctions and got them to withdraw the resolution. At least a dozen other countries also refused to submit the resolution fearing retaliation.

It took the Russians and Uncle Vlad to save the day and put forward the proposal. Not surprisingly, the American team stood down as soon as the Russians got involved. The resolution was passed on a vote of 118-1 with the United States being the only dissenting vote. Talk about isolation.

Once source said, “There is no scientific evidence behind the U.S. position. It simply reflects the fact that corporate sales are more important to the U.S. administration that the well-being of women and children.”

So, Mr. Pompeo, get used to the characterization of yourself as a gangster for as long as you represent this rogue administration. You can’t see it now, but every day you stay in this job you are creating a stain on your reputation that will never go away. I know you can’t see it, but you are living in the low point of your career.

Even though I lived my adult life as an English teacher, I’m not usually picky about how other people use or misuse language. I never correct people’s grammar and truth be told, was never much of a grammarian.

However, I’ve started to notice that the use of certain cliches´ has begun to wear on me, especially those that come up in political speech.

If I hear one more congressman or woman say, “We’re not going to be holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ here ya’ know” that I may have to cancel all of my newspaper subscriptions. Again.

First of all, I’m not sure why they are picking on “Kumbaya.” I was going to write something here about it’s history and how it has come to be a political punching bag, but discovered that Linton Weeks of NPR already wrote a spirited history and defense of the song called “When did ‘Kumbaya’ Become Such a Bad Thing?” for the NPR website on January 13, 2012. You should read it.

Needless to say, it is used to express a contempt for things like kindness, compassion, and compromise–certainly not the type of values that we want to encourage anymore. We used to think that such ideas were a good thing–you know, before we elected Voldemort as our president.

Besides, if you want to bash a song with kind intentions you could always pick on the iconic 1971 jingle from the Coke commercial named “I Want To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)” which may deserve mockery just because of the absurd length of the title. If you should look up the original commercial just for fun, you may cringe a bit at the collection of Stepford-like teens that they collected on a hilltop in Italy to sing that catchy little piece. You might also accidentally stumble across a creepy anti-sugary-drink parody that shows sickly people using the same tune put to different words that try to make the link between soda and its many potentially harmful side effects.

Also, I have wondered when did everything bad become an “existential threat”? Certainly Al Qaeda, ISIS, North Korea, and Iran have been deemed to be our enemies and they do present a threat to do bad things to our country, but having studied existentialism, I couldn’t make the bridge to the emerging use of that adjective. When I looked it up, one scholar suggested that this new usage implies that something (or some country, or some country’s leader) presents an “existential threat” if it threatens the very existence of our country, of our way of life. That means the phrase is being horribly overused since none of the above, while they may wish us harm, has the wherewithal to end our way of life. Hey, I watch Homeland too, I get it. But in fact, our military budget is so huge that it dwarfs the budget of the next seven closest countries combined. Combined. There are more serious threats to worry about.

Truly, the only existential threat that I see to the United States of America is Scott Pruitt. This is a cabinet member so corrupt and so deeply in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry that he has taken a wrecking ball to every environmental protection that he can find. I fully expect that if he hangs around much longer the EPA will propose that the US should be doing everything possible to encourage pollution, global warming, and climate change, and that we will be be immersed in Orwellian-style propaganda that insists that melting ice caps, costal flooding, increased droughts, increasingly violent hurricanes are things we should embrace. After all, all of those disasters do create good jobs for people.

Scott Pruitt, not ISIS, is the definition of an existential threat.

Finally, it has been an inspirational ray of hope that the country seems to have turned on gun makers and the NRA. People now openly mock the “thoughts and prayers” response that most politicians give to the latest mass shooting–lip service being given to this epidemic with no effort to make even the most common sense changes in the law. These horrific acts are happening with such frequency that I sense that politicians who have long supported the gun industry are afraid to utter the words “thoughts and prayers” as an offer of support to devastated communities because they now know that everyone else knows that offering “thoughts and prayers” is code for “I don’t really give a shit about you and your community. As long as no one I know personally gets hurt, I have no intention of alienating my donors.” Or something like that.

Actually, I don’t mind a good cliche´ now and then. It’s the ones that drip with hypocrisy and deceit that start to grind on me after a while. I think we just need to keep an eye out for the leaders who depend on these timeworn phrases as if they were wisdom and, please, stop electing them to office.

I’ve rewritten this piece in my mind repeatedly trying to discard phrases like “monumentally stupid” and “moronic” After all, I know there are some very fine people on both sides of the gun debate, and some friends of mine who I love and respect have expressed that they feel this is a good idea.

Clearly, I do not. First of all, the shootings at Parkland were horrific, and I applaud the activism that they have spawned. But, since that horrible day, hundreds of Americans have lost their lives to gun violence. I fear that the conversation in some quarters has narrowed to school shootings, and that we are in danger of losing focus on the bigger issue of gun violence nationwide.

But let’s look at the school safety suggestion that Trump has championed. If we are going to give teachers “a little bit of a bonus”, a gun, and a training course, we are going to make a massive, nationwide investment that does absolutely nothing to further the education of our kids. One estimate suggested that if we selected just 10% of teachers to train and arm we would be talking about 1.4 million educators. How can we justify the money that it would take to fund such an effort when states, even in a booming economy are not funding schools adequately?

His other proposal is to “harden” school sites making them more inaccessible to active shooters. Apparently he used the word “harden” over twenty times in one statement although there were no particular details on what that would mean. Students absolutely need to feel safe, but they also crave a warm, caring environment, not one that feels like a prison.

Here’s the other thing that I can say with some certainty as a former high school teacher. You can give me a gun and give me some training, but as much as I love and would want to protect my students, I sincerely question my ability to draw down on someone, probably a young person, and execute them. Clearly in the Parkland shooting, trained deputies had the same problem. Well-trained and adept soldiers sometimes never recover completely from killing another human being. I can’t imagine that teachers would be very good at it.

The focus on school shootings, long overdue no doubt, ignores that mass shootings are happening in the streets, in our churches, in movie theaters, in night clubs and at concert venues. How are we going to “harden” our churches to make them more safe? Are we going to arm and train pastors, the kid who sells you popcorn at the movies, bartenders, and concert security guards? Do we really want pistol packing preachers? Do you want to go to the movies knowing the teenaged usher may be carrying a Glock under his jacket? We have to think about the problem more globally.

I’m not sure why I would bother to end this by making suggestions of what should be done. We all know exactly what Congress will do about this issue: absolutely nothing. So rather than reiterate the same proposals that come up after every new outrage (banning assault weapons, limiting the size of ammo magazines, or creating a truly efficient method of background checks) let me suggest just one thing.

Make owning a weapon more expensive. Slap a 25% surcharge on every gun and every bullet sold in America. Say to people that no matter what the NRA tells you, no one is coming for your guns. However, if you really want it, you’ve got to pay more. The government could collect this surcharge and put it to any number of uses. We could create a fund for the victims of gun violence. We should absolutely fund research into gun violence as a national health problem as soon as Congress removes the ridiculous law that bans such funding. We could provide free gun locks to any gun owner who wants one. Hell, let’s give every gun collector a free gun safe. Then maybe we could prevent a few first graders from accidentally shooting their playmates on the playground of their “hardened” school campus.

There is plenty of precedence for this approach. We do the same thing with tobacco. If your product creates a burden on society, you have to pay more to help offset that burden. Tobacco taxes are used to help fund anti-smoking campaigns and study the effects of the way in which tobacco is marketed. No one is ever going to take away smokes from those who want to use them, but when your pleasure becomes a burden on society, you need to contribute to easing that burden.

Let’s at least try this before we become Fortress America and turn every school into a Green Zone.

Since the election of November 2016, I’ve really tried at times to insulate myself from the news simply because there seems to be so much happening that tears at my heart when I see the direction in which our country is being led. That direction seems to be so dedicated to abusing the interests of people in need, the disenfranchised, and the environment that it is painful to read about.

One glimmer of hope is that I know I am not alone in noticing.

So, I have returned to reading the paper with my coffee in the morning and steeling myself against the worst of the news I might face. Today was a pretty bad day.

Headline: White House Proposes $4.4 Trillion Budget

The despair: There is a lot to hate in this budget. It seems to slash at the programs that help people the most. Just to point out two things. It proposes cutting the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by over 20%–you know, that little department that until recently worked really hard to make sure that we had clean air and clean water? That ensured that we would move forward toward a future of sustainable, renewable energy? That we would support world-wide efforts to battle the causes of climate change? By contrast, the budget increases spending on the military by 13%. That is a whopping increase, and it is hard to buy the argument that somehow Obama “hollowed out” our military preparedness when the previous budget exceeded the military budgets of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Britain, Japan, and Germany combined. To help pay for this enormous increase, the proposed budget suggests cutting the food stamp program.

The hope: Congress has ignored most of the draconian cuts to social programs and even made substantive increases in health care and other services, but they will wrap themselves in the flag and pass the military budget with no questions asked.

Headline: Transgender Student Protections Curbed

The despair: Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions are at it again, rolling back protections for trans students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their chosen gender identity. It seems this decree only helps adults who are made uncomfortable by the existence of trans people and fervently hope they will just go away. Living in California where gender-neutral bathrooms in most public spaces are becoming the norm, their action does little harm. However, it once again, codifies this administration’s hostility toward the LGBTQ community.

The hope: It will take years, as it did for gay marriage, but stronger legal protections for the trans community are coming. We will have to wait for the Trump aberration to pass and for societal attitudes to evolve, but I believe that I will see it in my lifetime.

The Headline: Woman, 84, Held Over Gunshot

The despair: Yeah, just in case you missed this one, in rural Northern California an 84-year-old woman was arrested after she took out her rifle and shot in the direction of her neighbor’s 8 and 10 year-old children because they were being too noisy. Apparently the kids were riding motorcycles and after arguing with the parents, the woman got her rifle out and took a couple of shots toward the kids. No one was injured.

The hope: (Sigh) I’m not even sure what to say.

In an effort to gain some wisdom by stealing from the best, I am currently reading The Book of Joy, a conversation between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as recorded and stitched together by author Douglas Abrams. Abrams poses the question how one should cope with the despair that many people feel with all of the injustice, and pain, and suffering that we see in the world. The archbishop responded this way: “Despair can come from deep grief, but it can also be a defense against the risks of bitter disappointment and shattering heartbreak. Resignation and cynicism are easier, more self-soothing postures that do not require the raw vulnerability and tragic risk of hope. To chose hope is to step firmly forward into the howling wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing that, in time, the storm will pass.”

I like that he asks me to embrace hope as an active, vital, and valiant choice. It is a choice made by a warrior, someone ready for action now, but also confident in the good things that the future will bring.

On December 4, 2016 I came out of my self-induced coma long enough to react to the election of Donald Trump with a list of 6 personal survival strategies that I thought I would need practice in order to help me get through the next four (I refuse to even think about 8) years. I called that piece, “Surviving the Trump Apocalypse.”

The predictions I made about this wrecking ball of an administration were pretty right on, but far too generous. It has been so much worse, in so many ways than I could have predicted. I’m not going to catalogue all of that; it’s just too depressing. The only saving grace so far has been that the Republican-held Congress is so fractious and inept that they just can’t get anything done especially when the boss changes course, undercuts his own people, and makes policy changes depending on what he has watched on Fox News that morning.

That is not to say that they aren’t doing great damage. They have squandered the chance to take advantage of the robust economy they were left with and pass legislation that might further wage growth and help to rebuild critical infrastructure. Instead, they have wasted 6 full months trying to undo the good work of the ACA, revealing the embarrassing truth that they actually have no plan to help all Americans gain the security of health care. This, after 6 years of decrying and defaming the ACA and passing countless “repeal” bills.

OK. I have to stop the ranting.

The six suggestions that I made for my own survival all still make sense to me now, although some have become more important to me than others. But to review, here is what I was thinking back in December:

ISOLATE yourself from the news to protect your spirit and avoid immersing yourself in news that is going to make you feel depressed.

EXERCISE to help to lift your spirits and to join with others in communal activities like hiking and yoga.

CREATE–spend time in whatever creative endeavor lifts your spirits, engages you with others and makes you feel that you are bringing something good into the world.

PLANT SOMETHING–It feels good to watch things grow around you and especially if you have done the work to nurture new life. I never envisioned the outright assault that the Donald was going to inflict on the environment, but now know that everyone must contribute something.

VOLUNTEER for any organization that you know can use your help and for which you have a passion. Social services, immigration agencies, schools, and other things we have taken for granted could be devastated by potential budget cuts. These organizations will need us.

CELEBRATE your successes, whether they are personal or collective. We have to take joy in any sense of good we bring into the world. We have to celebrate the light we bring into the darkness.

I have utterly failed at #1. For the first couple of weeks when I was in deepest mourning, it was easy, but as this shitshow has developed, I simply cannot stay away from the news. As one commentator said last night, Trump has assembled, “the most incompetent Cabinet ever” and they are creating jaw-dropping headlines daily. Add that to the spectacular failures of Congress, the daily Trump tweet-storm, and the looming certainty that the Russian scandal may dwarf Watergate, and it has made it impossible for me to stay away from multiple news outlets. If anything, it has increased my appetite for news because every day, sometimes every hour, brings about a new WTF moment.

I have certainly stayed true to #2 (EXERCISE) frequently spending up to three hours a day on fitness, mostly with long walks, hikes, and yoga. I’m going bike shopping once the weather cools down. It has been excellent tonic for my mind, body, and spirit.

Numbers 3 and 4 have combined somewhat for me. Much of my creative endeavors over the past six months have centered on landscape design around the house. I have planted over 30 new plants in the yard, and increased my composting capacity. My Father’s Day gift was a kitchen scale and I began to use it to figure out just how much kitchen waste we were successfully diverting from the landfill and into our own compost. I discovered that we have been composting close to 25 pounds of kitchen waste per month, a number that startled me since it is just the two of us. It doesn’t make up for pulling out of the Paris accords, but every new plant, every small effort feels like the right thing to do. Also on the CREATE side, I’ve been writing more (sorry), and am considering enrolling in a drawing and/or guitar class in the fall.

Number 5 (VOLUNTEER) has not changed much for me. I continue to deliver food for Mama’s Kitchen twice a week, and have upped the hours that I volunteer for the Solana Center, a local non-profit dedicated to teaching folks about sustainable practices (like composting). I’d like to do more.

CELEBRATING successes has been a more quiet thing. People are afraid to talk about politics either to avoid conflict or too avoid surging down the rabbit hole of depression. One friend has started a “First Sunday Sunrise” hiking group and sets out a monthly challenge. She celebrates each hike on Facebook with pictures and videos and her group seems to continue to grow. This is kind of what I had in mind. I think about joining her group on every first Saturday night. It’s just that being-somewhere-at-or-before-sunrise-on-ANY-given-day thing that I struggle with. I did joyfully celebrate overcoming my fear of fun when I went both zip-lining and white-water rafting within four days on a trip to Colorado Springs. I became so energized by the adrenaline highs that as soon as I got home, I busted out a gift certificate that had been mouldering for almost 6 months and experienced indoor sky-diving. Anyone near me is tired of hearing me talk about it, but those three things have changed my ability to trust myself to be more open to challenging new experiences.

Make no mistake. The nation faces dire times ahead. This is how I’m coping right now. How about you? Any ideas for the rest of us?

When 45 was elected there were lots of postings on Facebook about the uptick in people purchasing and reading or re-reading George Orwell’s 1984.

I did not rush out and get a copy because I was already depressed enough and revisiting what I remembered of that grim world that Orwell first wrote about in 1950 did not appeal. I stayed away from it until a former student reached out on Facebook, and we decided to create a two-person book club. After reading The Handmaid’s Tale, we decided we would take on 1984.

As I read, I was surprised at how straightforward the narrative was, and while I could see some parallels to the political climate that we have been plunged into since the election of 2016, it wasn’t until half-way through the book that I came across some passages that really resonated.

I’m sure that some writers and thinkers have done much more work on this than I’m willing to so I will stick to a couple of parallels that were particularly striking.

Overall, I do not believe that 2016 looks like the world envisioned in 1984. After all, we are a vibrant and diverse culture. Personal liberties are mostly still intact. Their is robust political discussion, conversation, and protest that seems unending. The judiciary and individual states have managed to blunt some of 45’s excesses, and many of us are counting the days until the 2018 elections when some of our diffuse outrage might be turned into significant electoral action.

However, there are a few haunting similarities. Just as Orwell envisioned the ministries of Truth, Peace, and Love that were all dedicated to their opposites, 45’s cabinet-level nominees seemed to have been hand-picked to destroy or work in opposition to the very principles of their departments. The department of Justice under Jess Sessions is devoted to rolling back any initiative that was dedicated to advancing civil rights, and is working hard to find ways to increase voter suppression. The Environmental Protection agency is being gutted by Scott Pruitt, and it appears as though every effort to protect our air and water that has been implemented over the past 10 years is going to be eliminated as a sop to coal and oil interests just at a time when many states are surging forward with innovations in renewable energy. Just today, 18 states sued Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of the Department of Education, for trying to stop regulations that would protect students and parents from being defrauded by private, for-profit colleges.

The odd part for me about all of this is that the partisan divide is so deep that even though these policies hurt everyone, the polling seems to show little change since the election. 45’s base voters are as rabidly enthusiastic as ever although there has been movement among independent voters. There continues to be a solid majority that are unalterably apposed to the man. Of course, that was true on election day also.

The second parallel that was most striking to me was how the government of 1984 saw the power of re-writing the past and continually revising history in order to manipulate and control the masses. Winston, of course, knows this because he works in the Ministry of Truth where he is continually making changes to history books and historical documents to make them align with the Party’s changing positions. He tries to impress the enormity of this mass manipulation to his lover, Julia with an impassioned explanation: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

He is disappointed when his young lover shows little interest. She is so jaded that Winston’s news does not surprise her, just confuses and bores her a little. Of course the government lies. Yes, people are “disappeared.” Orwell describes her condition by saying that, [o]ften she was ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood did not seem important to her.”

Trump and his minions unapologetically spew out lies and contradictions at such a dizzying pace that I fear the populace has become anesthetized. The New York Times has compiled an impressive list of lies (“President Trump’s Lies, the Definitive List”) that Trump has foisted on America since his inauguration and despite the enormity of it, or maybe because of it, the populace seems to have grown numb. Thirty-five percent of Americans believe him or believe it doesn’t matter that he lies, and sixty-five precent have come to not believe anything that he says. All investigative reporting is quickly branded as “fake news” and the White House is always able to present “alternative facts” if asked. The deliberate confusing of all of the narratives surrounding the enormity of the scandals that are emanating from this administration has left many people unsure of who to believe.

Winston still has the capacity for outrage and the desire to join what he perceives as the resistance while Julia has accepted the duplicitous nature of the world she lives in and rebels through hedonism and other small defiances.

Seems like such a short time ago, we had a devout interest in protecting the environment, furthering the cause of civil rights, and working to provide for the good of all Americans. We had a president who most Americans trusted and who seemed to be trying hard to maintain a the kind of sense of dignity and decorum that we used to expect of our presidents.

We aren’t in the world of 1984 yet, but we certainly have moved closer to it.

I’ve decided that it’s the transitive property of equality that keeps bringing me back on Sundays to interpret Shakespeare in light of the Trump presidency. Or maybe vice versa. I think the transitive property (if A=B and B=C, then A=C) applies here for the following reason: Shakespeare wrote tragedies; the Trump presidency is a tragedy; therefore a big chunk of what Shakespeare wrote relates to the Trump presidency.

I wasn’t alone in noticing this phenomena this week as there were several articles about the new play that envisions Trump as Julius Caesar. I noted the comparison also in the Shakespeare Sunday post “Pride Before the Fall.” However, this week Trump’s bizarre Cabinet meeting brought comparisons to King Lear. One by one, as Trump beamed, each Cabinet member fell over themselves to tell him what it honor and a blessing it was to serve him (note in the picture that, when not speaking, the Cabinet members look awfully Pope-faced).

Just as Lear invited his three daughters to express their love to him as he decides just how to partition up his kingdom, clearly someone less elegantly put these poor fellows up to this silly show.

Lear at least does it with class as he demands:

Which of you shall we say doth love us most?

That we our largest bounty may extend

Where nature doth with merit challenge.

And then the groveling begins. First Goneril proclaims:

Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;

Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;

Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;

As much as child e’er loved, or father found;

A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;

Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

Just as at the Cabinet meeting, it became important to out-toady the previous speaker and likewise Regan feels a need to out do her sister:

Sir, I am made

Of the self-same metal that my sister is,

And prize me at her worth. In my true heart

I find she names my very deed of love;

Only she comes too short: that I profess

Myself an enemy to all other joys,

Which the most precious square of sense possesses;

And find I am alone felicitate

In your dear highness’ love.

It is Cordelia alone who dares to be honest, to speak truth to power. When asked by Lear what she can say that will make him feel even better about himself than the proclamations that have come before, she says, simply, “Nothing.” An astounded Lear, urges her on, in essence, begging her to come up with something praiseworthy, but Cordelia honestly replies:

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave

My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty

According to my bond; nor more nor less.

For her crime, Lear not only withdraws her part of the kingdom, but advises her that from this point forward she will be a “stranger to my heart and me.”

What a moment it would have been if just one of those “leaders” had been brave enough to say, “Hey, Mr. President, do we have time to talk about some issues here. You know, like soldiers dying in Afghanistan, congressmen being shot up on a baseball field, the entire country waiting to find out about health care changes?”

As Anna North, opinion writer for the New York Times pointed out in her article “President Trump’s King Lear Moment” (May 17, 2017) well before the above-mentioned Cabinet meeting:

He seems to lack a Cordelia who will speak to him honestly. Instead, Mr. Trump has been Regan and Goneriled all the way to the presidency, flattered and coddled by his advisers, the Republican establishment and his family to the point where flattery and coddling are useless and no amount of careful management can keep him from revealing state secrets and then bragging about it on Twitter.

That’s it for this Sunday! Have a lovely Father’s Day wherever you are. While you are relaxing in the recliner take a look back at the piece I posted earlier this week called “My Museum.” You might like it.

In reference to the title, it turns out that “pride before the fall” is actually a misquote from Proverbs. In the King James Bible, the quote is, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall.”

Sound like anyone we’ve seen in the news recently?

In casting about for a Shakespeare moment that I liked for today, I couldn’t get my mind off the cascade of news coming out of Washington. It’s like I have the Trump virus and it’s infected my brain. However, his bully-boy tour of Europe and decision to pull the U.S. from the Paris accords, his continued narcissism and dog-eat-dog mentality took me to a quote from Julius Caesar, where Caesar admits that yes, there are other men but compares himself to the Northern Star, immovable and incomparable–in other words he too sees himself as unpresidented. It goes like this:

I could be well moved, if I were as you.

If I could pray to move, prayers would move me.

But I am constant as the Northern Star,

Of whose true fixed and resting quality

There is no fellow in the firmament.

The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;

They are all fire and every one doth shine.

But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.

So in the world: ’tis furnished well with men,

And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive.

Yet in the number I do know but one

That unassailable holds on his rank,

Unshaked of motion; and that I am he

Let me a little show it, even in this:

That I was constant Cimber should be banished,

And constant do remain to keep him so. (3.1.64-79)

Of course, this is moments before he is lured into the betrayal by his most trusted allies and is brutally assassinated. The quote reminded me of how fragile leadership is especially when it is not tempered by self-awareness and a sense of morality.

And then columnist David Brooks’s essay in the New York Times, kicked my Trump virus into full gear with his insightful break-down of a statement made by two of Trumps lackeys this week. Brooks wrote:

“This week, two of Donald Trump’s top advisers, H. R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, wrote the following passage in The Wall Street Journal: ‘“The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a cleareyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”’

What disturbed me most (and made me think of Roman times) was their use of the word “arena” to describe the world view of the Trumpistas. They claim that their leader has a “clear-eyed” world vision that we are locked in battle with everyone seeking our own “advantage.” It derides and sweeps away generations of foreign policy that were centered on the creation of a “global community” for the greater good.

Brooks continues to comment that this attitude, “explains why people in the Trump White House are so savage to one another. Far from being a band of brothers, their world is a vicious arena where staffers compete for advantage.”

Have you seen the reports of how difficult it has become to find anyone willing to work at the White House? There are fewer people running this White House than there were cast members of the “West Wing” television series.

Brooks ends his column with a historical insight (Greeks this time) that suggests we are on a path that fills people like me with dread:

“I wish H. R. McMaster was a better student of Thucydides. He’d know that the Athenians adopted the same amoral tone he embraces: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” The Athenians ended up making endless enemies and destroying their own empire.”

Likewise, the Biblical passage above is somewhat incomplete. The full passage is, “Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.”

Bits of wisdom that Mr. Trump would be entirely immune from. Besides, they come in long sentences with big words and no pictures.

Oh, well. Think I’ll just brew me up a big pot of covfefe and enjoy the rest of my Sunday. I hope you do too!

I was getting ready to go to work on writing an update to my article “Surviving the Trump Apocalypse” but I’ve been too busy failing at the very first principle I outlined which was to ISOLATE myself from the news. I thought that I’d be a happier and more peaceful person if I quit listening to NPR and religiously reading the front page section of the New York Times every day. I thought I had exhausted my capacity for outrage during the Bush 43 years, but it turns out that that abomination barely pushed my outrage-o-meter up to “WARM.” Like a person who can’t make himself turn away from a train wreck about to happen, I can’t stop watching for the next WTF moment that will emerge from these clowns. That has led me to at least read the front page section of the local paper where I can get the short version of what is going on.

However, Thursday was remarkable, in that article after article seemed to have some additional bit of confirmation of how incompetent, duplicitous, or hypocritical this administration is and how each of his inner circle seems to be in a competition to prove he (there aren’t many women in this group) is just as bat-shit crazy as number 45.

You think I’m kidding. Here are some headlines all from Thursday’s paper, some quotes, and some commentary:

“Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Wednesday that it was doubtful that a wall along a full border with Mexico would ever be built, despite an of-repeated campaign promise by President Donald Trump.”

Well, this will come as a surprise to absolutely no one except some die-hard Trump supporters, the one’s who took him literally. I find it remarkable that we are often being told not to take the President so literally, except when we should take him literally because after all, he was the candidate who “tells it like it is.” Back to Kelly. He was asked about one element of “extreme vetting” which included “the possible separation of mothers and children at the border to discourage immigration.” He reassured senators that while he had not actually taken the time to write up a policy for when agents might do such a heinous and inhumane thing, “he had told employees that he must approve any such separations.” When questioned further about actually writing a policy, he replied, “border agents don’t need a written policy because he’d given the order verbally.” After all, he is a retired four-star general and “his subordinates know that his orders are to be followed even if they aren’t written down.” Does anyone else hear Jack Nicholson’s voice there? I’m surprise he didn’t end the session standing on his chair and shouting at the senators, “You want me on that wall! You need me on that wall!”

Trump Removes Bannon From Key NSC Post

With Michael Flynn gone, Trump actually put a qualified individual into place who has now sorted out just who should and should not be on the National Security Council. Little things, like making sure there was a chair for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. LIke kicking Steve Bannon out of the room who never belonged in the first place. But this was Bannon’s head-spinning explanation for why he was there in the first place, and why now, it was no big deal that he was leaving. He said, “Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration. I was put on the NSC with Gen. Flynn to ensure that it was de-operationalized. Gen. McMaster as returned the NSC to its proper function.”

Now, even I realized that I was reading this at 7 AM and there was some chance that the caffeine from my morning coffee and not yet kicked in, because I found myself say out loud, “What the fuck does that mean?” I was pleased and reassured when I read the next paragraph where the reporter commented, “Bannon did not explain what he meant by “operationalized” or how his presence on the committee had ensured that it would not be.” The syntax is so twisted, bizarre, and incomprehensible that Joseph Heller (Catch 22) would be proud.

U.S. Warns of Unilateral Action in Syria

This article was remarkable on several fronts. While he has tried to blame any bad thing that has happened in the opening days of his administration on President Obama (including the atrocities in Syria), he finally acknowledged that, “the responsibility is now mine.” But as so many times before, Trumps language is empty: “Trump said that the incident “crosses many, many lines” and had “changed very much” his attitude toward Assad.” His Defense Secretary James Mattis said, “It was a heinous act and will be treated as such.” I’m not sure what any of that means, but if Trump thought health care was “really complicated” just wait until someone, talking slowly and using small words, explains his options for Syria. Note: I wrote this piece early yesterday before the missile strikes in Syria, an action most startling because it reverses many of Trump’s previous statements about U.S. involvement in the Middle East. He has stepped into something “really complicated” here and interestingly, his severest critics have been his most fervent supporters who feel he has betrayed the many promises he made about keeping America out of messy international problems. For some thoughtful commentary, I suggest you look at Charles M. Blow’s opinion piece on the NYT website entitled “Creeping Toward Crisis.”

Tillerson’s Reticence on N. Korea Confuses Allies

If you haven’t heard of Rex Tillerson, he’s our new Secretary of State although he’s been left out of numerous key meetings and only a fraction of his staff positions have been filled. I’m not sure, but I don’t even think we now have a deputy Sec. of State. His quote of the day was, “North Korea launched yet another intermediated-range ballistic missile. The United States has spoken enough about North Korea. We have no further comment.” Really? Nothing to say about the aggressive actions of a strategically important nuclear power. The reporter pointed out that the comment was startling because, “In fact, the Trump administration has said very little about North Korea apart from some Twitter posts and Tillerson’s own statements in Seoul, South Korea, two weeks ago–when he said the United States would negotiate with North Korea only after it gave up its nuclear weapons and missiles. And that is unlikely to happen.”

EPA Seeks To Eliminate Lead Paint Programs

It’s hard to pick out the saddest part of this administrations efforts to basically turn the government over to business concerns, but if you had any doubt that the Environmental Protection Agency is now one of the biggest enemies of the environment, this should seal it: “EPA officials are proposing to eliminate two programs focused on limiting children’s exposure to lead-based paint–which is known to cause damage to developing brains and nervous systems”, gutting federal support for states’ efforts to safely remove lead paint from aging and deteriorating houses. If you haven’t been following the dismantling of the EPA, and the rollback of regulations that would have insured cleaner air and water for ourselves and our children, you probably should.

Apparently, there just wasn’t enough room on Thursday’s front page to include Trump’s defense of his buddy Bill O’Reilly of Fox News and the continuing reports of the millions of dollars that Fox has paid out to settle (cover up) complaints from numerous women of O’Reilly’s alleged incidents of sexual harassment. According to Trump, O’Reilly’s “a good person.”

I have to stop. I can feel the outrage-o-meter getting into dangerous territory. I may have to skip tomorrow’s paper entirely and immerse myself in a “West Wing” marathon. I always feel better after visiting my friends in that fictitious White House.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting into in last June when I decided to jump in as a volunteer for Mama’s Kitchen, a local non-profit that provides food assistance for San Diego residents who are living with HIV/AIDS or cancer. I went through the training to become a driver, someone who would have a selected route that I would cover one day a week and from about 3:30-5:30 PM would get bags of food out to my list of clients.

By the time I show up, a whole lot of people have done a whole lot of work preparing the meals that I will deliver to my clients.

I did know that I was going to work for a first-class organization filled with compassionate, dedicated people. Since 1990, Mama’s Kitchen has served over 8 million meals to needy San Diegans. Their mission is to provide three nutritional meals a day, for no charge, to their clients with AIDS or cancer and to their clients’ dependents. That means getting over 400 bags of food delivered every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 52 weeks out of the year.

That’s where people like me come in. I show up every Wednesday at around 3:15, load up my bags of food (my client list has ranged from 7 to 17 on any given day) along with a hot bag that contains a freshly prepared hot meal for each client to have for dinner that night.

Packed up and ready to go!

Then I’m on the road for the next 1-2 hours making deliveries. To be honest, there was a lot that I did not like about the work in the beginning. The route changed every time a client was added or deleted as the routing computer tries to give me the most efficient order of delivery. Initially, that made it hard to relax as I was often in unfamiliar territory and had to pay close attention to Siri’s sometimes imperious directions.

What makes her think I know my east from my west, anyway?

Needless, to say, at the beginning, I missed a lot of turns and sometimes was unsure if I was at the right house even though Siri reassured me I had “arrived at my destination.” I had to do a lot of checking and double-checking until streets and houses became more familiar. The transactions with client seemed strangely impersonal, and I just felt like the rewards of this particular volunteer gig were going to be limited.

Seven months in, I’m enjoying it tremendously. I now am covering the route on both Wednesdays and Fridays and some Mondays as needed. Now that my clients know I’m committed to the work, that I’m not a student who is looking to do some volunteer work to be able to listed on a college application or someone on probation who has been sentenced to community service, they have begun to treat me more as a real person and not just “the food guy.”

And my clients are no longer just strangers which makes the work both harder and easier. It’s hard to see them when they are having a bad day because all of them are on a rollercoaster when it comes to their strength and vitality. I often have to pound on the door and ring the doorbell repeatedly, and shout that, “It’s me, Tom, the good looking-looking food delivery guy!” because they sometimes sleep heavily in the afternoon, and it pains me to think that they might not get their food for the next two or three days. We are expressly forbidden from leaving food on the porch with the hope that they’ll get it before it begins to spoil.

The longer I do the route, the more of a sense of ownership I have and the more the positives pile up. I have a standing invitation to join one of my clients for bingo night (Wednesdays at 6 PM) at the senior apartment complex where she lives. At Christmas, one of my clients insisted I come in while she bagged up some tamales for me to take home. I get a lot of good wishes and “God bless you”s since I’m the final contact for Mama’s Kitchen and represent all the work done by so many people. The son of one of my clients has offered to detail my SUV for me assuring me that he’ll “take good care” of me.

My favorite moment on the route is delivering to a family with two school-aged daughters, maybe 7 and 10 years of age. They seem to love being “my favorite helpers!” which I announce loudly whenever I see them. The older daughter’s bright eyes and ready smile kill me every time as she takes one or two of the three bags I need to tote up to the house. I haven’t been able to resist treating them by slipping a pack of gel pens or drawing pads into their bags on Fridays and claiming that it “must have been the elves at Mama’s Kitchen. They must have heard you are taking good care of your mom!” –two children managing to thrive in the most precarious of situations.

As the fifth pillar of my guide to “Surviving the Trump Apocalypse” (soon to be revisited and revised), volunteering is a solid investment of my time. It takes me out of the whirlwind of bad news that #notmypresident Trump inspires and makes a small contribution to a vulnerable population, one that will receive no help soon from the federal government.